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We paid for that product. If they can't deliver the service, we are owed our money back. This would be fraud. Congress sells out the american people to corporations on these things. If revolution happens in the USA, it will be because congress and corporations pull this kind of corruption.

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There's all sorts of Force Majeure rules in life and contracts. e.g. I still have to pay for my kid's preschool she can't use. (Edit: Prepaid, not getting a refund)

I'm not sympathetic to the airlines at all and think they should refund, but I don't think it is universally true that "can't deliver service = owed money back" in this pandemic.

Well, no, Force Majeure would give you an option to back out of your agreement with the preschool, including tuition.

My understanding is Force Majeure rescinds the contract for Act of God (natural disaster) or Government (human-caused disaster). No contract means deposits and pre-payments would also revert.

/ianal

Unless you prepaid. I got forced into taking an apartment rental I wanted to back out of when I got laid off because I made the mistake of paying promptly. I might have had a chance to fight it otherwise.

Not necessarily...

the common law concept of restitution requires that the parties be returned to their original, pre-contracting positions. In reality, this means that the parties must return any prepaid monies or deposits

https://www.agg.com/news-insights/publications/your-event-is...

I think you are copying the section of when there is no force majeur section.

See this legal article covering schools "https://www.fisherphillips.com/resources-alerts-comprehensiv... -- they aren't legally obligated to refund if they have a force majeur provision in their contract.

That’s not really now Force Majeure works, there’s a lot more nuance to it than that.

You accept this behavior, almost argue for it.

That is wrong!

I don’t have to pay for my kids school. My kids school refunded all unused funds.

> This would be fraud.

I think 'fraud' has a specific technical definition - it requires 'intentional deception' or 'misrepresentation' or something similar depending where in the world you are.

If they decide to cancel your flight for business reasons and genuinely weren't planning to when they sold you your ticket you can argue that you should get your money back under consumer rights about paying for services provided and maybe contracts I don't know, but it doesn't really make any sense to claim it's 'fraud' - there isn't the deception or misrepresentation required.

The fraud is at a far deeper level. The founding father's social contract is based on laws-apply-equally-to-all-people (citizens vs BigCo). On a fundamental level, congress protects corporations financially in situations between BigCo-vs-citizen. Congress betrays people financially in cases of BigCo-vs-citizens. Congress sells out repeatedly to money interests. Congress on a fundamental violates laws-apply-equally-to-all-people. The fraud is at a deep level is when citizens loose hard cash by congress selling them out. I have plane tickets of flights that were cancelled. I'm going to lose $4,000 in real cash based on the flights my family ordered. $4,000 in real cash, because congress sells out citizens. When I lose $4k, that is fraud when the airline cancelled the flight.

But none of that is 'fraud' - they're being quite straightforward in telling you that they're cancelling and not refunding because they can't afford to refund. It'd only be 'fraud' if they were deceptive. 'Fraud' doesn't just mean 'something against my interests.'

Yep, this isn't fraud; it's just breach of contract.

They can and will deliver the service, on another flight, which is why they're giving you a flight voucher.

Why is this controversial? Seems fair enough to me.

I get the feeling people enjoy beating up on airlines because so many people pay the smallest amount possible, and then are shocked when they're not treated like first class passengers. People pay for McDonalds but expect fine dining.

The travel vouchers are essentially 0% interest loans that expire worthless if not used in 9 months. That is by far worse than cash. I don't even know why this is controversial. I paid for a service, they cancelled it and now I should get my money back and if they want that money, than they can get it in the future when the offer some other flight I want. I didn't pay them for a gift card that expires worthless in 9 months. Even gifts cards cannot pull that expiring shit anymore because it is so anti-consumer.

Because even though I probably agreed to a trade in the terms of purchase, a rescheduled flight isn’t a great solution; sometimes a rescheduled flight can mean the difference between a vacation and nothing. If I spend $5000 on a vacation (hotel and air) and I can’t fly there, I’m out $5000 for no fault of my own.

not fair. it's not a normal service. it's a transportation service. If I can't travel on date X, traveling on date Y may be useless.

One could argue it would be useful for another trip to a different location. Sure. But because airflights prices are so shady (prices changing every day, prices that are different if you have a VPN connected, etc etc), the voucher could make you choose for the worst price.

That doesn't seem fair to me tbh

No, if revolution happens in the USA it will be because politicians went too far in dividing us.

Not as long as there is sports on tv and McDonalds is open. Oh, wait.

Pot, liquor stores, and vape shops were all deemed essential businesses in Washington State.

Turns out the true opiate of the people are... well, opiates and other drugs.

This is an ignorant comment; there are entirely legitimate reasons why those stores are still open. Alcohol withdrawal can actually kill you, or at least put you in the hospital, and having to hospitalize a bunch of alcoholics is the last thing the system needs right now. People also use cannabis as a safer alternative to pain relief than actual opiates.

You missed one. What is the entirely legitimate reason why vape stores should be open?

Nicotine withdrawal won't kill you like alcohol can, but it sure fucking sucks. Taking away every source of joy from the populace during this could cause more harm than good. Also if you could buy cigarettes, but not vape supplies then a bunch of people would hop back on those.

For the same reason that Chik-Fil-a is open: because people like it.

Bread and circus.

It's a painful situation. There will be pain, suffering and A LOT OF economic loss. Somebody will have to pay for that loss. Guess who? The people! There's literally noone else to do it... how to distribute the burden? "fairly" (each person has a different idea what that means) ... at least people who afford air travel probably have a bit of money they can lose without suffering too much.

I’m sure the company will be able to suffer through the losses - and if it can’t, was it a viable business in the first place?

I don't think any business plan accounts for half of the worlds population suddenly not participating in the world economy.

Businesses with bad plans fail every day.

Since you seem to imply that one can make a good business plan for an airline accounting for such high risk, please present one, or point to one that has succeeded.

Any business plan that included "preparations for never before seen economic disruption due to global pandemic" would be hilariously bad.

A plan that included saving rather than leverage would be well suited to many sorts of disruptions. You couldn't hire McKinsey to write it for you, however.

Underlying all this whinging there seems to be a remarkable expectation that the world is supposed to be fair, and when it's not the taxpayer and the Fed should make it so. If the objects of all this fairness were human, I could see the point. However, you're talking about corporations, so there is no point.

That's not the right question. The right question is, do we want to have airline companies running planes or not? And if "yes", is it an actual long-term profitable business, or is it "years of tiny profits followed by bankruptcy" a.k.a. something no sensible investor would invest in.

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